HAVE you ever noticed room numbers in some hotels go from 419 straight to 421?
Or, perhaps you’ve happened across the very rare room number 419+1, and have
no idea why?
It’s not a widespread practice, but some hotel operators have taken to
avoiding room number 420 entirely because of its association with cannabis
and the troublemaking that sometimes occurs in rooms numbered as such.
Yesterday weed enthusiasts celebrated April 20 — or 4/20, in accordance with
American date-keeping — by blazing up with pride, usually at 4.20pm on the
dot, and celebrating pot culture generally.
April 20 has been marked in a variety of ways this year, most notoriously with
Snapchat’s controversial new Bob Marley filter.
This hotel has no room 420.:
— El Hermano (@ElHermanoAmigo)
And so enthusiastic are some stoners about their drug of choice they have
taken to stealing room 420 signs from hotels for souvenirs, or blazing up in
the room itself.
Some accommodation providers have tried to prevent possible mischief by
removing 420 as a room number entirely.
Over the years other hotel guests have noticed other attempts by hotels to
circumvent the enthusiasm of stoners for the number 420.
This hotel in Colorado, where it is legal to smoke weed, went ahead and
stencilled the number 420 onto the door to spare them from having to replace
the sign each time it went missing.
And as for why 420 is the favourite number for stoners?
That has been debated for generations, but it is most widely attributed to a
bunch of university students in California in the 1970s who started the
tradition of meeting for a sneaky joint at 4.20pm.
The number has since become cultural shorthand for pot smoking, and has been
celebrated in songs, films and other expressions of popular culture.
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But 420 is not the only number that has presented challenges for the hotel
industry.
Many hotels avoid the 13th floor, reserving it for storage and maintenance or
skipping it entirely, due to many people’s morbid fear of the number 13.
Imagine the buzzkill when u got to room 420. .
— Mikey D (@miggalooch)
Some room numbers are significant in specific hotels, due to their association
with horror stories and reports of paranormal activity.
Among them are rooms 217 and 418 at The Stanley Hotel in Colorado, the spooky
lodgings that inspired horror author Stephen King to write The Shining.